Alexander Greate and Macedonians Scythian origin?!
Printed From: History Community ~ All Empires
Category: Regional History or Period History
Forum Name: Ancient Mesopotamia, Near East and Greater Iran
Forum Discription: Babylon, Egypt, Persia and other civilizations of the Near East from ancient times to 600s AD
URL: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=28238
Printed Date: 12-May-2024 at 14:55
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Topic: Alexander Greate and Macedonians Scythian origin?!
Posted By: svarun
Subject: Alexander Greate and Macedonians Scythian origin?!
Date Posted: 24-Mar-2010 at 02:50
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There are serious indications that the ancient Macedonians, or at least their elites were originally from the steppes of southern Russia. Findings haplogroups R1a1 comes from studying the remains of Philip macedonian and other Macedonian aristocrats! Today Haplogroup R1a1 dominates among the Slavic nations, east Iranian and north-west of Indian origin. It is known that Haplogroup R1a1 dominated among Indo-Iranian steppe peoples. And today is represented among the Central Asian nations as those Iranian roots and those turkified. Haplogroup R1a1 is represented by about 19 percent in Iran! Before the arrival of Slavs in present day Macedonia dominated haplogroups were quite different! Whether it is possible that one group of Scythians in the early times come down to the region of present-day Macedonia, and there established their own state and was greecified by the dominant native population of Greek origin.Sorry about bad english !
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Replies:
Posted By: Shield-of-Dardania
Date Posted: 28-Mar-2010 at 17:42
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Hi Svarun. Welcome to the forum. That's extremely interesting, what you're saying. I would say, it does carry a significant possibility, considering that the Macedonians inhabited a region formerly dwelled by Scythians and Sarmatians. Let's just see what the others say. ------------- History makes everything. Everything is history in the making. |
Posted By: opuslola
Date Posted: 29-Mar-2010 at 21:02
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"There are serious indications that the ancient Macedonians, or at least their elites were originally from the steppes of southern Russia."
Maybe they looked and attacked a lot like the later people from these same steppes? I think, in later times, they wore a "Special Black Woolen" hat or helmet, and were sometimes called "Cossacks!" Possibly some of them even wore "Special Black Woolen Coats", also! Would such a force sometimes be also called "The Blacks?" But, of course the two eras do not match! Regards, ------------- http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/history/ |
Posted By: Cyrus Shahmiri
Date Posted: 08-Apr-2010 at 13:22
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I think one thing which can connect Scythians to Greeks is the Ascanian dynasty, a dynasty which established the Parthian empire after Alexander, who were Ascanians and where did they come from? There is a lake in the the most western part of modern Turkey: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_%C4%B0znik - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_%C4%B0znik -> Its ancient name "Ascanius" is derived from Ashkuza, the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_language - Assyrian word for the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythians - Scythians .
The 10th century Persian scholar Abu Rayhan Biruni says that the first Parthian king was Ask ibn (son of) Balash ibn Shapur ibn Ashkan ibn Ashkinar, who was Ashkinar? Could he be the same Askantar or Eskandar, the name which is said to be the Persian name of Alexander? ------------- 
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Posted By: Shield-of-Dardania
Date Posted: 11-Apr-2010 at 21:00
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That's very interesting. But then, I thought the conventional accepted wisdom is that Alexander did not have any surviving children. His 2 children from wife Rukhsana the Sogdian princess, and another 2 from mistress Barsine (anyone has her Persian name?), daughter of Ardavaz (Artabazus), as well as Rukhsana and Barsine, were all executed.
Of course, something new could always turn up some time. There was Statyra, ex-queen of Darius III, whom Alexander married or took as mistress. She supposedly died in childbirth, but there is no info about her child, whether it survived or not, and whether that child was from Darius III or from Alexander.
Indeed, some surviving royal dynasties of small kingdoms in Malaysia and Indonesia still claim Alexandrian lineage, although their claims are rather vague, much more myth than history, and lacking in solid documented evidence.
Among the theories being bandied about was: (1) that Rukhsana was smuggled out to safety with a child to Sumatra, Indonesia; and (2) Alexander had married a daughter of Porus, the Indian king he defeated at the Battle of Hydaspes River, and had issue that survived, from that marriage. Alexander, during his long sojourns abroad, might also have sired other children, unrecorded by writers, from relationships with other women.
How about a theory that Alexander might have had Achaemenid blood? So that when he defeated Darius III Codommanus, it was like a challenge for the throne by an outsider heir. Alexander, incidentally, also styled himself Shah an Shah (King of Kings), a title begun by the earliest Achaemenid kings, if I recall correctly, after winning the throne of Persia.
You see, Macedonia under Alexander I (495 - 450 BC), of the Temenid dynasty, was vassal to Persia. Khashayar Shah (Xerxes) had married a sister of Alexander I, possibly after General Marduniya (Mardonius), nephew and son in law of Daraya (Darius), thus also cousin of Khashayar Shah, had managed to quell a Macedonian uprising without great resistance.
I would say, during such a time of Persian hegemony over Macedonia, it would have been considered a great honour for a king of Macedonia to also have married an Achaemenid princess. It would have made for a more strongly bound alliance, benefiting both sides. A sister or perhaps cousin of Khashayar Shah would have been a likely candidate for such a union.
A son or daughter of such a marriage, if it indeed occurred, could easily have entered him(her)self into later Temenid lineage, thereby becoming an ancestor of Philip and Alexander. Could that have happened? ------------- History makes everything. Everything is history in the making. |
Posted By: Cyrus Shahmiri
Date Posted: 12-Apr-2010 at 00:19
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I think you know that according to the Persian sources, Alexander was brother of Darius III (Dara) from another mother, we read in Shahnameh that both of them were sons of Darius (Darab) who was the son of Artaxerxes Memnon (Ardashir Bahman), but mother of Alexander was Anaitis(Anahita/Nahid), the dauther of Philip (Failakus) who had no male offspring.
In the Greek sources Darius III is one of the most unknown Persian characters, it is not even clear he was an Achaemenid or not, but in the Persian sources we know he was also a son of Darab, however his elder brother and legitimate heir to the throne was Alexander who was in the palace of his maternal grandfather in Macedonia when Darius III claimed the throne. -------------
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Posted By: svarun
Date Posted: 12-Apr-2010 at 00:20
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it is about genetic markers R1a1 transmitted from father to son for generations! Thus it is a male genetic line that can not be transmitted through the female kinship. R1a1 or genetic marker with a genetic marker R1b1 (to a lesser extent) whose holders were proto Indo-Iranians and proto Indo-Europeans who orginated in south Russian stepa side and central Asia. Sorry about bad english! ------------- |
Posted By: Shield-of-Dardania
Date Posted: 12-Apr-2010 at 01:33
I have not read the Shahnameh version yet. So, this 'Darab', which Darius was he? Darius II then, I guess.
But the version I read in the novel 'Memnon', by Scott Oden, was that Darius III Codommanus was an old and reluctant prince who had to accept the Achaemenid throne after Artaxerxes III (or IV?) Occhus, his cousin I think, died while Alexander was carrying out his Persian invasions.
There is yet another angle one could 'pursue'. There are many stories that Alexander's mother Olympias (by Greek sources) wasn't too keen to marry Philip. There were also rumours that Alexander was not really Philip's son, but of a secret lover of Olympias. That fits in with the legend that Olympias kept telling the infant Alexander that he was a son of Zeus came to earth in human form.
We could then theorise that the so called 'Zeus', i.e. the secret lover, was indeed an Achaemenid prince-general on a long diplomatic visit to Epirus, Olympia's kingdom, just before she went over to Pella to be Philip's bride. No?
 P.S. What would be the correct Persian names for 'Barsine' (daughter of Ardavaz), and 'Artontes' (son of Marduniya? Would 'Vahra Shihna' and 'Ardu Nahta' sound like reasonable translations? ------------- History makes everything. Everything is history in the making. |
Posted By: Cyrus Shahmiri
Date Posted: 15-Apr-2010 at 11:18
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No, he doesn't seem to be Darius II, I think he could be Artaxerxes III or maybe a brother of Artaxerxes III.
According to http://www.esm.ir/SearchResult.asp?QuickSearchItem=%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%B3%DB%8C%D9%86&StartPage=mainpage&Search=%3CIMG+alt%3D%D8%AA%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%85+%DB%8C%D8%A7+%D9%82%D8%B3%D9%85%D8%AA%DB%8C+%D8%A7%D8%B2+%D8%A7%D8%B3%D9%85+%D9%85%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%AF+%D9%86%D8%B8%D8%B1+%D8%AE%D9%88%D8%AF+%D8%B1%D8%A7+%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%AF+%DA%A9%D8%B1%D8%AF%D9%87+%D8%A7%DB%8C%D9%86+%DA%A9%D9%84%DB%8C%D8%AF+%D8%B1%D8%A7+%D9%81%D8%B4%D8%A7%D8%B1+%D8%AF%D9%87%DB%8C%D8%AF+src%3DPic%2Fsearch.gif+border%3D0%3E - this Persian website , Barsine has an Assyrian origin and means "Child of the moon god" in this language, of course it could be just a similar Assyrian name, there is also a city named "Barsin" in Iran but the older name of this city was "Parsin" (Persian). -------------
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Posted By: Cyrus Shahmiri
Date Posted: 15-Apr-2010 at 12:14
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Let's back to the topic, is it really possible that Macedonians had an Iranian Scythian origin? The name "Makdonia" sounds really Iranian, like the name of the Persian general who conquered Macedonia, by a letter change, "Mardonia" (Mardonius), it is interesting to read a Wiki article about the ancient Macedonian language:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Macedonian_language - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Macedonian_language
Hesychius Glossary
The below words of unknown date, out of the single http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychius_of_Alexandria - Hesychius manuscript, are marked as Macedonian. For the words of Macedonian Amerias, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerias - Glossary of Amerias . Terms that occur in epigraphy are transferred above.
About this first word abagna, as you read, it seems the most similar word is Persian bāġ.
It is clear that abroutes is also more similar to Persian abru. Similar Persian words can be found about other words too. -------------
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Posted By: Shield-of-Dardania
Date Posted: 16-Apr-2010 at 01:54
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Marduniya's father Gaubaruva a.k.a. Gubaru (Gobryas) was actually a Medean general. He was khshatrapa of Gordium, maybe from Cyrus Bozorg's time. He was one of those allied with Darius, when Darius killed Gaumata, purportedly a Magi masquearading as Bardiya (Smerdis), younger brother of Cyrus II, whom Darius claimed had already been killed by Cyrus II much earlier. When Cyrus II died on the way back from his Egyptian campaign, in rather strange circumstances, Darius seized the throne.
Gaubaruva later married Ardu Zustra or Ardusdukba (Artozostre), a sister of Darius. It's not clear if Marduniya was a son by that princess, making him a half-Persian blood nephew of Darius, therefore cousin of Khashayar Shah (Xerxes), or if he was a son by an earlier marriage of Gaubaruva to a Medean woman.
If only Marduniya had lived in a later age. Then Alexander would have faced Marduniya, alongside Memnon the Rhodian and Parnavaz (Pharnabazus). Three great commanders. Darn it. Why did Alexander always have to be so lucky?
------------- History makes everything. Everything is history in the making. |